SACRAMENTO: SB 1178, authored by Senator Sam Aanestad (R-Grass Valley), is moving forward in the legislative process after receiving the unanimous approval of the Senate Committee on Business and Professions during hearings earlier today. The measure is closely related to SB 252, which Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law last year.
SB 252, also authored by Senator Aanestad, required that registered sex offenders be prohibited from licensure by the Dental Board of California and also required the Dental Board to revoke existing licenses for any individual who was required to register as a sex offender.
However, SB 252 applied only to those individuals who had been convicted of sex offenses under California state law. The new measure, SB 1178, will extend the same set of requirements to dental professionals who have been convicted of sex offenses under federal law.
"Dental patients have a right to be protected from predators in California, whether they have been convicted under state or federal law," said Senator Aanestad. "This measure will provide them with the safety they deserve, while protecting the integrity of the dental industry."
Senator Aanestad introduced both SB 252 and SB 1178 following high profile cases where patients had been victimized by physicians who were unable to respect appropriate boundaries and limit their behavior. Two of the cases involved physicians who were actually convicted of sexual offenses, but were still allowed to resume their medical practices.
Senator Aanestad, a licensed Oral Surgeon who owned and operated his own private practice in Grass Valley for several decades, says California patients should be able to fully trust medical professionals.
SB 1178 will require the Dental Board of California to deny an application for licensure or renewal, or revoke the license, of an individual who is required to register as a sex offender under state or federal law. The Aanestad measure gives the Dental Board a mechanism to better protect the public by providing much faster legal action against individuals who have been convicted of sexual crimes.
"It should not matter where the conviction took place, or what court the conviction took place in," said Senator Aanestad. "Registered sex offenders should not be providing dental services for adults or children under any circumstance."
senate.ca/aanestad
четверг, 12 мая 2011 г.
Diabetes a bigger heart disease risk for women than for men
Women with diabetes have a significantly greater risk of dying from coronary heart disease (CHD) than men with diabetes,
researchers reported today at the Second International Conference on Women, Heart Disease and Stroke.
Diabetes is a well-established CHD risk factor known to double a person's chance of dying from heart disease. There has been
much debate, but no large studies of whether diabetes carries different heart risks for women than for men, said Mark
Woodward, Ph.D., professor of biostatistics at The George Institute for International Health at the University of Sydney,
Australia.
Using data on more than 450,000 people, which included participants in the Asia Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration,
researchers found that men with diabetes had about 90 percent higher risk of dying from CHD as men without diabetes. Women
with diabetes had more than two and a half times the risk of women without diabetes. That translates to a greater than 50
percent excess relative risk for women than for men, he said.
The data came from two previous meta-analyses of 16 studies and a collaborative overview of 44 studies in nine countries in
the Asia-Pacific Region (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, New Zealand and Australia).
About 5 percent of all the participants had diabetes. Diabetes was defined according to self-reported history with or
without fasting glucose evidence as an alternative. The researchers were able to adjust for age, systolic blood pressure,
total cholesterol and cigarette smoking in most of the data sets, he said.
Perhaps better monitoring and control of blood glucose levels in women with diabetes would reduce their CHD risk compared
with men with diabetes, Woodward said.
"There is some evidence to suggest that people with diabetes benefit from treatment with aspirin, cholesterol-lowering drugs
and blood pressure-lowering agents," he said.
This meta-analysis has similar drawbacks to most overviews, including the possibility of publication bias (in this case the
exclusion of studies that did not report sex-specific results), misdiagnosis of diabetes, lack of information on an
individuals' medical treatment, no information on menopause status or on whether subjects had Type 1 diabetes, due to the
body's inability to produce insulin, or Type 2 diabetes, initially caused by the inability to use the insulin produced. Data
from randomized trials of individuals with diabetes would clarify these issues.
Besides continuing to seek data on the sex-specific relative risk for CHD related to diabetes, researchers at the George
Institute are leading a large-scale randomized trial Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease: Preterax and Diamicron MR
Controlled Evaluation (ADVANCE) on 11,140 people. They are trying to ascertain whether more intensive glucose control
combined with blood pressure lowering reduces cardiovascular mortality in people with Type 2 diabetes. The trial, which will
follow participants for 4? years on average, will end in 2006.
The conference is jointly sponsored by the American Heart Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
American College of Cardiology Foundation, the World Heart Federation, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the
Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
This abstract was published in the February 2005 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Co-authors are: Federica Barzi and Rachel Huxley.
Statements and conclusions of study authors that are published in the American Heart Association scientific journals are
solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The American Heart
Association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability.
NR05-1020 (IWC05/Woodward)
This is a press release from the
American Heart Assoc
researchers reported today at the Second International Conference on Women, Heart Disease and Stroke.
Diabetes is a well-established CHD risk factor known to double a person's chance of dying from heart disease. There has been
much debate, but no large studies of whether diabetes carries different heart risks for women than for men, said Mark
Woodward, Ph.D., professor of biostatistics at The George Institute for International Health at the University of Sydney,
Australia.
Using data on more than 450,000 people, which included participants in the Asia Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration,
researchers found that men with diabetes had about 90 percent higher risk of dying from CHD as men without diabetes. Women
with diabetes had more than two and a half times the risk of women without diabetes. That translates to a greater than 50
percent excess relative risk for women than for men, he said.
The data came from two previous meta-analyses of 16 studies and a collaborative overview of 44 studies in nine countries in
the Asia-Pacific Region (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, New Zealand and Australia).
About 5 percent of all the participants had diabetes. Diabetes was defined according to self-reported history with or
without fasting glucose evidence as an alternative. The researchers were able to adjust for age, systolic blood pressure,
total cholesterol and cigarette smoking in most of the data sets, he said.
Perhaps better monitoring and control of blood glucose levels in women with diabetes would reduce their CHD risk compared
with men with diabetes, Woodward said.
"There is some evidence to suggest that people with diabetes benefit from treatment with aspirin, cholesterol-lowering drugs
and blood pressure-lowering agents," he said.
This meta-analysis has similar drawbacks to most overviews, including the possibility of publication bias (in this case the
exclusion of studies that did not report sex-specific results), misdiagnosis of diabetes, lack of information on an
individuals' medical treatment, no information on menopause status or on whether subjects had Type 1 diabetes, due to the
body's inability to produce insulin, or Type 2 diabetes, initially caused by the inability to use the insulin produced. Data
from randomized trials of individuals with diabetes would clarify these issues.
Besides continuing to seek data on the sex-specific relative risk for CHD related to diabetes, researchers at the George
Institute are leading a large-scale randomized trial Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease: Preterax and Diamicron MR
Controlled Evaluation (ADVANCE) on 11,140 people. They are trying to ascertain whether more intensive glucose control
combined with blood pressure lowering reduces cardiovascular mortality in people with Type 2 diabetes. The trial, which will
follow participants for 4? years on average, will end in 2006.
The conference is jointly sponsored by the American Heart Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
American College of Cardiology Foundation, the World Heart Federation, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the
Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
This abstract was published in the February 2005 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Co-authors are: Federica Barzi and Rachel Huxley.
Statements and conclusions of study authors that are published in the American Heart Association scientific journals are
solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The American Heart
Association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability.
NR05-1020 (IWC05/Woodward)
This is a press release from the
American Heart Assoc
Scanbalt Clinical Research Network Project Focuses On Diabetes
The ScanBalt Clinical Research Network project, launched in March 2005, was successfully finished in April 2006. The ScanBalt Clinical Research Network was a pilot project, funded by Nordic innovation Center, which overall aim was to give added value to the vision of ScanBalt BioRegion: to be a globally competitive meta-region. Two main objectives of the project were:
1. to map the resources and competencies of clinical research in the region;
2. to identify the persons for continued activities in the network.
As a result of the project completed mapping of competencies and resources in the field of pre-clinical research, clinical trials, and mobile ICT solutions for conducting clinical trials was carried out. Based on this a database with search engine for competencies and partners was created (available at scanbalt/factfile-c). The general result of the project indicated that all parties involved found the clinical network important and useful. On the other hand it was not easy to find persons that are willing to take active role in setting up really working network. Substantial efforts and financial resources are needed in order create a fully working network structure. CRO-s seems to have a theoretical conflict of interest as investigator network are often main proprietary asset of the company.
Nevertheless, it has been widely recognized the ScanBalt Bioregion countries and regions to be too small on their own to be able to supply large enough trial groups. Number of governments (for example UK) has initiated strategic projects to improve their position on the global clinical research arena. Mutual cooperation based on the well organized network will potentially improve ScanBalt Bioregions position in clinical research industry.
The vision of the follow-up proof of concept project to the ScanBalt Clinical Research Network pilot project is to set up a working patient recruitment network in the ScanBalt region embracing one disease area - diabetes. The new organization will be based on the interconnection network of academic clinical research infrastructures, hospitals and industry.
This diabetes network has to provide effective and efficient infrastructure for prompt recruitment and clinical trial management: legally and organizationally sound tool for electronic selection of patients from different clinical databases and research sites, efficient system for obtaining approvals by ethics committees and obtaining informed consent from participants, appropriate management IT tool for conducting clinical trials and securing the quality of trials.
The Estonian Genome Project Foundation in cooperation with Tartu Biotechnology Park and Sahlgrenska University Hospital has started to select partners as well to design general outline for this proof of principle project. The proof of concept project, if successful, can be stepwise extended to other therapeutic areas as well as to widen the partnership with other European regions.
SCANBALT
Arne Jacobsens All? 15, 2,
scanbalt
1. to map the resources and competencies of clinical research in the region;
2. to identify the persons for continued activities in the network.
As a result of the project completed mapping of competencies and resources in the field of pre-clinical research, clinical trials, and mobile ICT solutions for conducting clinical trials was carried out. Based on this a database with search engine for competencies and partners was created (available at scanbalt/factfile-c). The general result of the project indicated that all parties involved found the clinical network important and useful. On the other hand it was not easy to find persons that are willing to take active role in setting up really working network. Substantial efforts and financial resources are needed in order create a fully working network structure. CRO-s seems to have a theoretical conflict of interest as investigator network are often main proprietary asset of the company.
Nevertheless, it has been widely recognized the ScanBalt Bioregion countries and regions to be too small on their own to be able to supply large enough trial groups. Number of governments (for example UK) has initiated strategic projects to improve their position on the global clinical research arena. Mutual cooperation based on the well organized network will potentially improve ScanBalt Bioregions position in clinical research industry.
The vision of the follow-up proof of concept project to the ScanBalt Clinical Research Network pilot project is to set up a working patient recruitment network in the ScanBalt region embracing one disease area - diabetes. The new organization will be based on the interconnection network of academic clinical research infrastructures, hospitals and industry.
This diabetes network has to provide effective and efficient infrastructure for prompt recruitment and clinical trial management: legally and organizationally sound tool for electronic selection of patients from different clinical databases and research sites, efficient system for obtaining approvals by ethics committees and obtaining informed consent from participants, appropriate management IT tool for conducting clinical trials and securing the quality of trials.
The Estonian Genome Project Foundation in cooperation with Tartu Biotechnology Park and Sahlgrenska University Hospital has started to select partners as well to design general outline for this proof of principle project. The proof of concept project, if successful, can be stepwise extended to other therapeutic areas as well as to widen the partnership with other European regions.
SCANBALT
Arne Jacobsens All? 15, 2,
scanbalt
Study Shows Genes Predict How Well Diabetes Drug Will Work for Type 2 Patients
How well a person with type 2
diabetes responds to a diabetes drug may well depend upon his or her genetic
make-up, according to a study published in the May issue of Diabetes Care.
The study found that people who carried certain genotypes responded less
favorably to rosiglitazone, a drug often prescribed for people with diabetes,
than carriers of other genotypes.
The study is the latest in a growing body of research focused on
pharmacogenetics, or how genetic factors influence a person's reaction to a
specific drug. An unrelated study recently set off controversy when it found
the heart drug BiDil was effective in treating African Americans after having
fared poorly when given to Caucasians, causing concern that pharmacogenetics
could lead to racially tailored drug marketing.
There are small, but sometimes important, differences in the structure of
the same gene among different people. That is, the genotypes are slightly
different. The study, by researchers in Korea, found that people with type 2
diabetes who had certain genotypes were less likely to show improvement in
blood glucose control (as measured by A1C levels), fasting glycemia and plasma
adiponectin levels (a marker for insulin sensitivity) after treatment with
rosiglitazone (marketed as Avandia), as compared to other people with type 2
diabetes. Subjects were treated with the medication for 12 weeks without
changing any of their previous medications.
"This study has nothing to do with race," said Dr. Eun Seok Kang, one of
the lead researchers on the study. "It shows us how important
pharmacogenetics could be in the future in helping us quickly and efficiently
determine the best treatment to give people. If something in our genetic
make-up offers clues about how well we will respond to particular medications,
this could be a tremendous asset to people with diabetes and other complex
diseases. Obviously knowing ahead of time which drugs will work best means we
can eliminate the entire trial-and-error process of drugs that don't work or
work poorly for some people. Clearly we have a lot more to learn before we
get to that stage, but this is an important first step."
Diabetes Care, published by the American Diabetes Association, is the
leading peer-reviewed journal of clinical research into the nation's fifth
leading cause of death by disease. Diabetes also is a leading cause of heart
disease and stroke, as well as the leading cause of adult blindness, kidney
failure and non-traumatic amputations. For more information about diabetes,
visit the American Diabetes Association Web site diabetes or
call 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383).
American Diabetes Association
diabetes
View drug information on Avandia; BiDil.
diabetes responds to a diabetes drug may well depend upon his or her genetic
make-up, according to a study published in the May issue of Diabetes Care.
The study found that people who carried certain genotypes responded less
favorably to rosiglitazone, a drug often prescribed for people with diabetes,
than carriers of other genotypes.
The study is the latest in a growing body of research focused on
pharmacogenetics, or how genetic factors influence a person's reaction to a
specific drug. An unrelated study recently set off controversy when it found
the heart drug BiDil was effective in treating African Americans after having
fared poorly when given to Caucasians, causing concern that pharmacogenetics
could lead to racially tailored drug marketing.
There are small, but sometimes important, differences in the structure of
the same gene among different people. That is, the genotypes are slightly
different. The study, by researchers in Korea, found that people with type 2
diabetes who had certain genotypes were less likely to show improvement in
blood glucose control (as measured by A1C levels), fasting glycemia and plasma
adiponectin levels (a marker for insulin sensitivity) after treatment with
rosiglitazone (marketed as Avandia), as compared to other people with type 2
diabetes. Subjects were treated with the medication for 12 weeks without
changing any of their previous medications.
"This study has nothing to do with race," said Dr. Eun Seok Kang, one of
the lead researchers on the study. "It shows us how important
pharmacogenetics could be in the future in helping us quickly and efficiently
determine the best treatment to give people. If something in our genetic
make-up offers clues about how well we will respond to particular medications,
this could be a tremendous asset to people with diabetes and other complex
diseases. Obviously knowing ahead of time which drugs will work best means we
can eliminate the entire trial-and-error process of drugs that don't work or
work poorly for some people. Clearly we have a lot more to learn before we
get to that stage, but this is an important first step."
Diabetes Care, published by the American Diabetes Association, is the
leading peer-reviewed journal of clinical research into the nation's fifth
leading cause of death by disease. Diabetes also is a leading cause of heart
disease and stroke, as well as the leading cause of adult blindness, kidney
failure and non-traumatic amputations. For more information about diabetes,
visit the American Diabetes Association Web site diabetes or
call 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383).
American Diabetes Association
diabetes
View drug information on Avandia; BiDil.
New Map Of Copy Number Variation In The Human Genome Is A Resource For Human Genetics
In research published by Nature, an international team describes the finest map of changes to the structure of human genomes and a resource they have developed for researchers worldwide to look at the role of these changes in human disease. They also identify 75 'jumping genes' - regions of our genome that can be found in more than one location in some individuals.
However, the team cautions that they have not found large numbers of candidates that might alter susceptibility to complex diseases such as diabetes or heart disease among the common structural variants. They suggest strategies for finding this 'dark matter' of genetic variation.
Human genomes differ because of single-letter variations in the genetic code and also because whole segments of the code might be deleted or multiplied in different human genomes. These larger, structural differences are called copy number variants (CNVs).
The new research to map and characterize CNVs is of a scale and a power unmatched to date, involving hundreds of human genomes, billions of data points and many thousands of CNVs.
"This study is more than ten times as powerful as our first map, published three years ago," explains Dr Matt Hurles from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and a leader on the project, "and much more detailed than any other. Importantly, we have also assigned the CNVs to a specific genetic background so that they can be readily examined in disease studies carried out by others, such as the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium.
"Nevertheless, we have not found large numbers of common CNVs that we can tie strongly to disease. There remains much to be discovered and much to understand and our freely available genotyped collection will drive that discovery."
The results show that any two genomes differ by more than 1000 CNVs, or around 0.8% of a person's genome sequence. Most of these CNVs are deletions, with a minority being duplications.
Two consequences are particularly striking in this study of apparently healthy people. First, 75 regions have jumped around in the genomes of these samples: second, more than 250 genes can lose one of the two copies in our genome without obvious consequences and a further 56 genes can fuse together potentially to form new composite genes.
"This paper detailing common CNVs in different world populations, and providing the first glimpse into evolutionary biology of such class of human variation, is unquestionably one of the most important advances in human genome research since the completion of a reference human genome," says Professor James R. Lupski, Vice Chair of the department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. "It complements the cataloguing of single nucleotide variation delineated in the HapMap Project and will both enable some new approaches to, and further augment other studies of, basic human biology relevant to health and disease."
"The genetic 'blueprint' of humans is the human genome," says Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust. "But we are each unique as individuals, shaped by variation in both genome and environment. Understanding the variation amongst human genomes is key to understanding the inherited differences between each of us in health and disease. A whole new dimension has been added to our understanding of variation in the human genome by the identification of copy number variants."
The results also give, for the first time, a minimum measure of the rate of CNV mutation: at least one in 17 children will have a new CNV. In many cases, that CNV will have no obvious clinical consequences. However, for some the effects are severe. In those cases the data are captured in the DECIPHER database, a repository of clinical information about CNVs designed to aid the diagnosis of rare disorders in young children.
But CNVs are not only about here and now; they are also ancient legacies of how our ancestors adapted to their environments. Among the most impressive variations between populations are CNVs that modify the activity of the immune system, known to be evolving rapidly in human populations, and genes implicated in muscle function. The researchers propose that the consequences of these CNVs can be dissected in population studies.
The team scanned 42 million locations on the genomes of 40 people, half of European ancestry and half of West-African ancestry. The scale of the method meant they could detect CNVs as small as 450 bases occurring in one in 20 individuals.
However, the researchers concede that their map of common variants will not account for much of the 'dark matter' of the genome - the missing heritability where, despite diligent searches, genetic variants have not been found for common disease.
"CNV studies have made huge advances in the past few years, but we are still looking only at the most common CNVs," explains Dr Steve Scherer of the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. "We suspect that there are many CNVs that have real clinical consequences that occur in perhaps one in 50 or one in 100 people - below the level we have detected.
"Success in the hunt for the missing genetic causes of common disease has become possible in the last few years and we expect to find more as higher resolution searches become possible."
The research group have maximized the value of their research by not only mapping the CNVs, but by also genotyping them - assigning them to a specific genetic background that makes them readily useful in wider genetic studies, such as the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium.
"We were determined to develop not only the map, but also to provide the resources that help other researchers and clinical cytogeneticists most rapidly use our CNV results," comments Dr Charles Lee, one of the project leaders from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. "Already, the data that we have generated is benefiting other large-scale studies such as the 1000 Genomes Projects as well as making an enormous difference in the accurate interpretation of clinical genetic diagnoses.
"Nonetheless, the human CNV story is far from over."
Publication Details:
Conrad DF, Pinto D et al. (2009) Copy number variation in the human genome: mechanism, selection and disease. Nature
Funding:
This research was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Canada Foundation of Innovation and Ontario Innovation Trust, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Genome Canada/Ontario Genomics Institute, the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine, Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation, the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
However, the team cautions that they have not found large numbers of candidates that might alter susceptibility to complex diseases such as diabetes or heart disease among the common structural variants. They suggest strategies for finding this 'dark matter' of genetic variation.
Human genomes differ because of single-letter variations in the genetic code and also because whole segments of the code might be deleted or multiplied in different human genomes. These larger, structural differences are called copy number variants (CNVs).
The new research to map and characterize CNVs is of a scale and a power unmatched to date, involving hundreds of human genomes, billions of data points and many thousands of CNVs.
"This study is more than ten times as powerful as our first map, published three years ago," explains Dr Matt Hurles from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and a leader on the project, "and much more detailed than any other. Importantly, we have also assigned the CNVs to a specific genetic background so that they can be readily examined in disease studies carried out by others, such as the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium.
"Nevertheless, we have not found large numbers of common CNVs that we can tie strongly to disease. There remains much to be discovered and much to understand and our freely available genotyped collection will drive that discovery."
The results show that any two genomes differ by more than 1000 CNVs, or around 0.8% of a person's genome sequence. Most of these CNVs are deletions, with a minority being duplications.
Two consequences are particularly striking in this study of apparently healthy people. First, 75 regions have jumped around in the genomes of these samples: second, more than 250 genes can lose one of the two copies in our genome without obvious consequences and a further 56 genes can fuse together potentially to form new composite genes.
"This paper detailing common CNVs in different world populations, and providing the first glimpse into evolutionary biology of such class of human variation, is unquestionably one of the most important advances in human genome research since the completion of a reference human genome," says Professor James R. Lupski, Vice Chair of the department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. "It complements the cataloguing of single nucleotide variation delineated in the HapMap Project and will both enable some new approaches to, and further augment other studies of, basic human biology relevant to health and disease."
"The genetic 'blueprint' of humans is the human genome," says Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust. "But we are each unique as individuals, shaped by variation in both genome and environment. Understanding the variation amongst human genomes is key to understanding the inherited differences between each of us in health and disease. A whole new dimension has been added to our understanding of variation in the human genome by the identification of copy number variants."
The results also give, for the first time, a minimum measure of the rate of CNV mutation: at least one in 17 children will have a new CNV. In many cases, that CNV will have no obvious clinical consequences. However, for some the effects are severe. In those cases the data are captured in the DECIPHER database, a repository of clinical information about CNVs designed to aid the diagnosis of rare disorders in young children.
But CNVs are not only about here and now; they are also ancient legacies of how our ancestors adapted to their environments. Among the most impressive variations between populations are CNVs that modify the activity of the immune system, known to be evolving rapidly in human populations, and genes implicated in muscle function. The researchers propose that the consequences of these CNVs can be dissected in population studies.
The team scanned 42 million locations on the genomes of 40 people, half of European ancestry and half of West-African ancestry. The scale of the method meant they could detect CNVs as small as 450 bases occurring in one in 20 individuals.
However, the researchers concede that their map of common variants will not account for much of the 'dark matter' of the genome - the missing heritability where, despite diligent searches, genetic variants have not been found for common disease.
"CNV studies have made huge advances in the past few years, but we are still looking only at the most common CNVs," explains Dr Steve Scherer of the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. "We suspect that there are many CNVs that have real clinical consequences that occur in perhaps one in 50 or one in 100 people - below the level we have detected.
"Success in the hunt for the missing genetic causes of common disease has become possible in the last few years and we expect to find more as higher resolution searches become possible."
The research group have maximized the value of their research by not only mapping the CNVs, but by also genotyping them - assigning them to a specific genetic background that makes them readily useful in wider genetic studies, such as the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium.
"We were determined to develop not only the map, but also to provide the resources that help other researchers and clinical cytogeneticists most rapidly use our CNV results," comments Dr Charles Lee, one of the project leaders from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. "Already, the data that we have generated is benefiting other large-scale studies such as the 1000 Genomes Projects as well as making an enormous difference in the accurate interpretation of clinical genetic diagnoses.
"Nonetheless, the human CNV story is far from over."
Publication Details:
Conrad DF, Pinto D et al. (2009) Copy number variation in the human genome: mechanism, selection and disease. Nature
Funding:
This research was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Canada Foundation of Innovation and Ontario Innovation Trust, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Genome Canada/Ontario Genomics Institute, the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine, Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation, the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Diabetes And Pre-Diabetes Accounted For $218 Billion In Costs In 2007, Health Affairs Paper Demonstrates
A new analysis found that the cost of diabetes and pre-diabetes reached $218 billion in 2007, with the exploding number of cases of type 2 diabetes responsible for the majority of the costs. The National Changing Diabetes® Program (NCDP), a program of Novo Nordisk, commissioned the analysis, published online as a Web First article in Health Affairs and performed by researchers at The Lewin Group.
According to the study, diagnosed type 2 diabetes accounted for $174.4 billion of 2007 spending on diabetes and undiagnosed type 2 diabetes was responsible for $18 billion in costs. Spending on type 1 diabetes totaled $14.9 billion in 2007. Pre-diabetes, a state of elevated blood glucose that affects one in every four adults in the U.S. and is a precursor to diabetes, cost $25 billion. Gestational diabetes, which develops during pregnancy, was associated with $636 million in costs.
"Families dealing directly with the disease know how out-of-pocket medical expenses and reduced earnings can be fiscally disastrous, but diabetes hurts every American," said Tim Dall, managing director of The Lewin Group, who led the research. "The burden of diabetes and pre-diabetes -- $700 for every man, woman and child in the country in 2007 -- represents a hidden 'tax' that we all pay through higher insurance premiums."
The analysis examined both direct medical costs, which accounted for $153 billion in spending, and $65 billion in indirect costs associated with absenteeism and disease-related productivity losses.
Spending on each case of type 1 diabetes totaled about $15,000 in 2007. Type 2 diabetes cost nearly $10,000 per patient per year. In contrast, those with pre-diabetes required an average of only $443 in additional medical costs.
But a growing body of research has shown that low-cost pre-diabetes patients can cut their risk of developing diabetes with lifestyle modifications. The landmark Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) trial found that lifestyle modifications including increases in physical activity and moderate weight loss in patients at risk for diabetes could cut their rate of developing diabetes by as much as 58 percent compared with a control group. Additionally, a 10-year follow-up of DPP patients published last year found that the benefits originally seen persisted for at least a decade, with individuals in the lifestyle modification intervention experiencing a 34 percent lower risk of diabetes than those who received no intervention.
"Diabetes, in the late stages, is an expensive disease to treat. Our best chance of keeping the cost of diabetes manageable is to take the lessons of the DPP and work to prevent diabetes in those at highest risk," said Michael Mawby, the chief government affairs officer at Novo Nordisk. "The only way to make this effort work on a large scale is through thoughtful, nationally funded programs."
Without intervention, costs are expected to skyrocket. Research published last year in the American Diabetes Association journal Diabetes Care projected that the country's diabetes population will double over the next 25 years and direct annual medical spending on the disease is projected to hit $336 billion by 2034.
About the National Changing Diabetes® Program
The National Changing Diabetes® Program (NCDP) is a multi-faceted initiative that brings together leaders in diabetes and policy to improve the lives of people with diabetes. NCDP strives to create change in the U.S. health care system to provide dramatic improvement in the prevention and care of diabetes. Launched in 2005, NCDP is a program of Novo Nordisk.
About Novo Nordisk
Novo Nordisk is a healthcare company with an 86-year history of innovation and achievement in diabetes care. The company has the broadest diabetes product portfolio in the industry, including the most advanced products within the area of insulin delivery systems. In addition to diabetes care, Novo Nordisk has a leading position within areas such as hemostasis management, growth hormone therapy, and hormone therapy for women. Novo Nordisk's business is driven by the Triple Bottom Line: a commitment to social responsibility to employees and customers, environmental soundness and economic success. With headquarters in Denmark, Novo Nordisk employs more than 27,550 employees in 81 countries, and markets its products in 179 countries. Novo Nordisk's B shares are listed on the stock exchanges in Copenhagen and London. Its ADRs are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol 'NVO'.
According to the study, diagnosed type 2 diabetes accounted for $174.4 billion of 2007 spending on diabetes and undiagnosed type 2 diabetes was responsible for $18 billion in costs. Spending on type 1 diabetes totaled $14.9 billion in 2007. Pre-diabetes, a state of elevated blood glucose that affects one in every four adults in the U.S. and is a precursor to diabetes, cost $25 billion. Gestational diabetes, which develops during pregnancy, was associated with $636 million in costs.
"Families dealing directly with the disease know how out-of-pocket medical expenses and reduced earnings can be fiscally disastrous, but diabetes hurts every American," said Tim Dall, managing director of The Lewin Group, who led the research. "The burden of diabetes and pre-diabetes -- $700 for every man, woman and child in the country in 2007 -- represents a hidden 'tax' that we all pay through higher insurance premiums."
The analysis examined both direct medical costs, which accounted for $153 billion in spending, and $65 billion in indirect costs associated with absenteeism and disease-related productivity losses.
Spending on each case of type 1 diabetes totaled about $15,000 in 2007. Type 2 diabetes cost nearly $10,000 per patient per year. In contrast, those with pre-diabetes required an average of only $443 in additional medical costs.
But a growing body of research has shown that low-cost pre-diabetes patients can cut their risk of developing diabetes with lifestyle modifications. The landmark Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) trial found that lifestyle modifications including increases in physical activity and moderate weight loss in patients at risk for diabetes could cut their rate of developing diabetes by as much as 58 percent compared with a control group. Additionally, a 10-year follow-up of DPP patients published last year found that the benefits originally seen persisted for at least a decade, with individuals in the lifestyle modification intervention experiencing a 34 percent lower risk of diabetes than those who received no intervention.
"Diabetes, in the late stages, is an expensive disease to treat. Our best chance of keeping the cost of diabetes manageable is to take the lessons of the DPP and work to prevent diabetes in those at highest risk," said Michael Mawby, the chief government affairs officer at Novo Nordisk. "The only way to make this effort work on a large scale is through thoughtful, nationally funded programs."
Without intervention, costs are expected to skyrocket. Research published last year in the American Diabetes Association journal Diabetes Care projected that the country's diabetes population will double over the next 25 years and direct annual medical spending on the disease is projected to hit $336 billion by 2034.
About the National Changing Diabetes® Program
The National Changing Diabetes® Program (NCDP) is a multi-faceted initiative that brings together leaders in diabetes and policy to improve the lives of people with diabetes. NCDP strives to create change in the U.S. health care system to provide dramatic improvement in the prevention and care of diabetes. Launched in 2005, NCDP is a program of Novo Nordisk.
About Novo Nordisk
Novo Nordisk is a healthcare company with an 86-year history of innovation and achievement in diabetes care. The company has the broadest diabetes product portfolio in the industry, including the most advanced products within the area of insulin delivery systems. In addition to diabetes care, Novo Nordisk has a leading position within areas such as hemostasis management, growth hormone therapy, and hormone therapy for women. Novo Nordisk's business is driven by the Triple Bottom Line: a commitment to social responsibility to employees and customers, environmental soundness and economic success. With headquarters in Denmark, Novo Nordisk employs more than 27,550 employees in 81 countries, and markets its products in 179 countries. Novo Nordisk's B shares are listed on the stock exchanges in Copenhagen and London. Its ADRs are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol 'NVO'.
Know The Warning Signs For Type 1 Diabetes
When Sonia Sotomayor was named Supreme Court nominee, the type 1 diabetes community seized the news as proof that diabetes is no longer a life-limiting condition.
Unfortunately, the number of children with type 1 diabetes Ms. Sotomayor was diagnosed at age 8 is on the upswing. In type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile-onset diabetes, the pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin are destroyed by an autoimmune process. Type 1 diabetics must regiment their diets and take insulin multiple times a day to control blood sugar levels and prevent diabetic coma. Although there is much excitement in the field, to date there is no cure for type 1 diabetes.
Doctors don't know why the numbers are rising or what causes type 1 diabetes, but Dr. Soumya Adhikari, assistant professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center, said the warning signs are clear.
"The biggest thing to watch out for is somebody who starts having to go to the bathroom (to urinate) all the time or drinking all the time," said Dr. Adhikari, who practices at Children's Medical Center Dallas. "In the Texas heat, people typically see that and think, 'It's hot they're probably urinating more because they are drinking more,' and nine out of 10 times that's right. But, if it seems atypical compared to what they did last summer or they're losing weight or otherwise seem ill, it's probably worth at least considering having their blood sugar tested."
Other symptoms can include abdominal pain, sudden vision changes, drowsiness, nausea, and heavy, labored breathing.
Unfortunately, the number of children with type 1 diabetes Ms. Sotomayor was diagnosed at age 8 is on the upswing. In type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile-onset diabetes, the pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin are destroyed by an autoimmune process. Type 1 diabetics must regiment their diets and take insulin multiple times a day to control blood sugar levels and prevent diabetic coma. Although there is much excitement in the field, to date there is no cure for type 1 diabetes.
Doctors don't know why the numbers are rising or what causes type 1 diabetes, but Dr. Soumya Adhikari, assistant professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center, said the warning signs are clear.
"The biggest thing to watch out for is somebody who starts having to go to the bathroom (to urinate) all the time or drinking all the time," said Dr. Adhikari, who practices at Children's Medical Center Dallas. "In the Texas heat, people typically see that and think, 'It's hot they're probably urinating more because they are drinking more,' and nine out of 10 times that's right. But, if it seems atypical compared to what they did last summer or they're losing weight or otherwise seem ill, it's probably worth at least considering having their blood sugar tested."
Other symptoms can include abdominal pain, sudden vision changes, drowsiness, nausea, and heavy, labored breathing.
Подписаться на:
Сообщения (Atom)